07. 10. 2005

GOVERNMENT’S SPECIAL TREATMENT OF SOME MEDIA

BELGRADE, October 7, 2005 – The situation in Serbian media is pretty bad, since the majority of journalists are inadequately trained for the job. The media inclines more to sensationalism and adapting to the demands of the market, said the Serbian Culture and Information Minister Dragan Kojadinovic. Kojadinovic said there no longer existed a single media in Serbia being coordinated by the state cabinet, but there were still people in the most responsible positions in the media who were being used as an instrument of any political stream or option. “Journalists must remove such people in charge from the most responsible positions in order to do their job professionally”, said Kojadinovic on the opening of the two-day seminar of the Journalists’ Forum of Central European Initiative. According to Kojadinovic, media in Serbia is free, still, many journalists and editors must free themselves from their debts from the past, which do not allow them or the newsroom to operate. Kojadinovic also noted that the adoption of the Broadcast Act enabled regulation of the chaos in the media sphere, since there is currently over 1,400 electronic media in Serbia. “I expect the tender for frequency allocation to be called in the beginning of the next year, and regulations valid in Europe to be respected, because the air of the neighboring countries is frequently disturbed”, Kojadinovic said. However, certain media has preferential treatment by the new ruling authority like in the time of Slobodan Milosevic, Kojadinovic pointed. Former chief of Serbia-Montenegro Mission to EU Pavle Jevremovic said that the beginning of negotiations for signing the agreement on stabilization and EU accession will initiate a new phase in relations with the European Union, since they were mainly politicized until now. According to Jevremovic, the European integration, however slow it progresses, represents cohesive element of the society. Jevremovic appealed to all journalists to focus more on the problems of our citizens in obtaining visas. “Restriction of travel is pointless and can have serious political consequences”, said Jevremovic.